Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society

Failte Ireland

Thoor Ballylee announces a part-time position for an administrative assistant.

Thoor Ballylee is seeking an organised and proactive administrative assistant to help with running the visitor centre for 20 hours per week. You will liaise with tour groups, handling bookings, updating database and managing correspondence. Maintaining the tower for opening and ending of season, plus ongoing light maintenance and managing contracted trade, are essential tasks. Promoting the tower on social media, handling our annual education programme, liaising with Fáilte Ireland and providing support to the committee with events are also included. Salary and conditions will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

If you have proven experience in heritage and you’d like to join our team, please apply by email with a CV and cover letter to Chairperson, yeatsthoorballyleesociety@gmail.comby 5 July 2018.

Promise of a licence for Thoor Ballylee granted in Seanad

Fáilte Ireland is to grant a licence to the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society to enable it to fundraise to re-open the tourist attraction.

Thoor Ballylee, once the home of W.B.Yeats and his family and an inspiration to his poetry, closed in 2010 after extensive flooding. Fáilte Ireland spent EU 200,000 euro in 2012 to secure the building.

The tourism authority says it’s not viable to provide funds for the re-opening of the 15th-century Norman tower.

William Butler Yeats and his wife George, 1920s

Chair of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames raised the matter in the Seanad, in a joint venture with Senator Susan O’Keeffe, chair of the Yeats2015 committee for celebrating Yeats’s 150th birthday.

Senator Healy-Eames called on the Tourism Minister to ensure Fáilte Ireland provides a licence to the local society to fundraise to re-open the building themselves.

Senator Healy-Eames with Senator O’Keefe argued that Thoor Ballylee needs to re-open for the national celebration of the 150th anniversary of Yeats’ birth next year.

Responding, Junior Minister at the Department of Tourism, Michael Ring says he’s glad to announce that a licence will be granted to raise funds for Thoor Ballylee.

Once an Irish senator himself, W.B.Yeats made notable speeches in the chamber arguing passionately for the right to divorce and against strict censorship laws. The poet was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.

Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society

Welcome to Thoor Ballylee.
This fourteenth-century Hiberno-Norman tower was described by Seamus Heaney as the most important building in Ireland, due to its close association with his fellow Nobel Laureate for literature, W.B.Yeats. The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society are actively seeking funds to ensure the tower and associated cottage are permanently restored and reopened to visitors as a cultural and educational centre.